CB 

155 
fG 


UC-NRLF 


Our  Machine 
Civilization 


By     ■■    •    "•'■'      ■ 

RAYMOND  B.  FOSDICK 


An  Address  Delivered  at  the 
Commencement  Exercises 

of 

Wellesley  College, 

June  20,  1922 


Printed  through  the  courtesy  of  a  friend  of  Wellesley 


OUR  MACHINE  CIVILIZATION 

ONE  hundred  years  ago  this  summer  Harvard 
College  graduated  the  class  of  1822  with  sixty 
members.  The  Commencement  address  was  given  by 
the  Reverend  John  Kirkland  and  it  was  as  dreary^as 
Commencement  addresses  invarijibl}'  ■  are.  It  con- 
tained all  the  wise  counsel '  aw  d  pdous  admoni- 
tion which  age  habitually  gives  to  youth  and  which' 
youth  habitually  disregards.  But  in  the  middle 
of  that  address,  which  now  lies  mouldering  in 
the  Harvard  library  as  its  author  lies  moulder- 
ing in  his  grave,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Kirkland 
said  a  rather  startling  thing.  He  referred  to 
the  world  into  which  the  sixty  Harvard  seniors 
were  about  to  step  as  "a  complex  world."  He  seemed 
to  infer  that  the  simplicity  of  older  days  was  gone 
and  that  life  had  become  an  involved  and  bewilder- 
ing process.  I  am,  of  course,  aware  that  this  has 
always  been  to  some  extent  the  reaction  of  old  age. 
Life  seems  to  speed  up  because  age  is  slowing  down. 
But  with  all  allowance  for  this  natural  change  in 
speed,  it  does  seem  a  bit  strange,  does  it  not,  particu- 
larly from  the  standpoint  of  1922,  that  the  world  of 
1822  should  have  seemed  to  anybody  to  be  complex. 
For  think  what  the  world  was  like  in  1822.  In 
all  America,  in  all  Europe,  there  was  not  a  railroad, 
nor  a  telephone,  nor  a  telegraph.  The  steamboat  had 
just  been  tried  out  as  a  doubtful  experiment.  Travel 
was  a  painful  and  precarious  undertaking,  with  the 
result  that  most  people  stayed  home,  living  and  dying 


965C19 


where  they  were  born.  Students  at  Harvard  College 
living  at  some  distance  came  by  way  of  the  stage 
coach  or  on  horseback.  From  South  Framingham 
to  Boston  was  a  day's  journey  when  the  roads  were 
good,  and  they  were  often  bad.  From  Boston  to  New 
York  was  five  days.  When  Samuel  Morse,  the 
painter  and  inventor,  tried  to  get  from  Washington, 
D.  C.  to  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  to  the  bedside  of 
his  dying  wife,  it  took  him  seven  days.  From  one 
month  to  three  months  elapsed  before  European 
news  reached  the  United  States,  and  the  battle  of 
New  Orleans  with  all  its  dreadful  slaughter  was 
fought  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  weeks  before, 
peace  had  been  signed  between  England  and  Amer- 
ica in  the  city  of  Ghent  in  Belgium. 

But  the  world  of  1822  had  other  differences.  There 
were  no  electric  lights,  no  sewing  machines,  no  bath- 
tubs, no  furnaces,  no  hot  water  faucets,  no  asphalt 
or  macadam  pavement,  no  sewer  systems — in  fact, 
none  of  the  conveniences  which  have  become  an  ac- 
cepted part  of  the  life  of  1922.  In  those  days  only 
a  small  proportion  of  the  population  lived  in  cities. 
The  farm  and  village  housed  the  rest.  The  factory 
system  had  only  just  developed — in  connection  with 
weaving  and  spinning — and  the  home  was  the  unit 
and  center  of  all  the  industrial  arts.  People  lived 
for  the  most  part  simply  and  quietly,  engaged  in  a 
routine  of  work  from  which,  in  generations,  there 
had  been  but  little  variation.  Indeed  from  the  days 
of  Rameses  II  and  Moses  down  to  the  days  of  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Kirkland  and  our  grandfathers,  amaz- 
ingly few  fundamental  changes  occured  in  the  ma- 
terial existence  of  common  people.  The  physical 
factors  of  life  were  practically  stereotyped.  That 
long  stretch  of  history  is  a  story  of  human  capacities 


undeveloped  and  natural  resources  unused.  Trans- 
portation and  communication  were  no  more  rapid 
a  hundred  years  ago  when  the  Reverend  Mr.  Kirk- 
land  was  exhorting  the  sixty  Harvard  seniors  than 
they  were  with  the  ancient  Egyptians.  Nothing 
swifter  than  a  horse  was  known  to  either  Nebuchad- 
nezzar or  Napoleon.  The  farmers  around  Wellesley 
in  1822  used  the  same  methods  and  the  same  instru- 
ments that  were  used  in  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar. 

And  remember  this  was  only  a  hundred  years  ago. 
I  am  not  talking  about  ancient  history;  I  am  talking 
of  conditions  of  life  in  the  days  of  our  grandfathers. 

But  there  were  other  differences  between  those 
days  and  these.  When  Mr.  Kirkland  made  his  Com- 
mencement address,  Charles  Darwin  was  only  thir- 
teen years  old  and  the  whole  foundation  of  modern 
biology  and  modern  philosophy  as  Well  was  yet  to 
be  laid.  Agassiz  was  fifteen  years  old;  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  was  twenty-five  years  old,  and  the  crude  geo- 
logical conceptions  of  Linnaeus  and  Lamarck  were 
still  in  vogue.  In  the  general  field  of  chemistry  and 
physics  Michael  Faraday  was  just  beginning  his 
work.  In  the  field  of  medicine,  Jenner  was  still  alive, 
and  his  idea  of  vaccination  against  small-pox  was 
just  beginning  to  win  its  way.  Lord  Lister  and 
Louis  Pasteur  w^ere  not  yet  born,  and  anesthetics 
and  antiseptic  surgery  were  unknown  to  the  world. 
In  the  realm  of  astronomy,  Pierre  Laplace,  who  orig- 
inated the  nebular  hypothesis,  was  still  alive,  while 
J.  C.  Adams,  his  successor  in  the  field  of  mathemat- 
ical astronomy,  was  only  three  years  old.  Many  of 
the  subjects  which  you  young  women  have  studied 
in  your  four  years  at  Wellesley  were  unheard  of. 
There  was  no  such  thing  as  experimental  psychology. 


for  example,  and  the  word  sociology  did  not  exist 
in  the  English  language.  The  average  college  cur- 
riculum of  1822  consisted  principally  of  Latin,  Greek 
and  mathematics,  sweetened  with  a  dash  of  what 
was  called  "natural  philosophy,"  and  accompanied 
by  liberal  doses  of  the  theolog>^  of  Jonathan 
Edwards. 

This,  then,  is  what  the  world  was  like  in  1822  when 
the  Reverend  John  Kirkland  called  it  complex.  It 
was  a  world  just  waking  from  a  long  sleep.  It  w^as 
a  world  that  was  rubbing  its  eyes  in  the  presence 
of  new  forces.  If  that  world  seemed  complex  to  the 
sixty  Harvard  seniors  of  the  Class  of  1822,  what  does 
the  present  world  seem  to  us ! 

For  between  that  time  and  this,  between  the  days 
of  our  grandfathers  and  ourselves,  has  occurred  the 
mightiest  revolution  in  histoiy.  It  has  completely 
changed  the  whole  complexion  of  human  life.  It 
has  fundamentally  altered  our  daily  habits;  it  has 
not  only  modified  our  environment,  but  has  thor- 
oughly revolutionized  it;  it  has  split  the  anciently 
established  order  into  a  thousand  fragments.  Since 
the  days  of  Assyria  and  Babylon — indeed  since  the 
days  of  our  Neolithic  forefathers — nothing  has  oc- 
curred which  has  so  completely  and  in  so  short  a 
time  changed  the  method  and  manner  of  living  of 
the  human  race,  as  the  mechanical  revolution  of  the 
nineteenth  centuiy. 

For  think  what  has  happened.  With  the  advent 
of  steam  and  electricity  we  have  annihilated  the  dif- 
ficulties of  space  and  distance.  When  Napoleon  was 
retreating  in  headlong  fashion  from  Moscow,  it  took 
him  312  hours  to  complete  the  last  leg  of  his  journey 
from  Vilna  to  Paris.  Any  traveller  can  now  do  it 
in  less  than  48  hours  by  railroad  or  in  8  hours  by 


airplane.  We  cross  the  ocean  in  five  days,  where  a 
century  ago  it  took  two  months.  We  fly  by  airplane 
from  one  city  to  another,  from  one  country  to  an- 
other, in  a  few  hours'  time.  Our  fast  mails  go  by 
airplane.  In  our  automobiles  we  pass  from  state  to 
state  and  see  in  a  day  more  than  our  grandfathers 
could  have  covered  in  a  month.  By  cable  and  wire- 
less we  are  in  immediate  and  constant  touch  with 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  With  our  own 
voices  we  talk  to  our  friends  a  thousand  miles  away. 
Seated  in  our  ow^n  libraries  we  hear  concerts  and 
lectures  that  are  hurled  to  us  through  the  air  from 
500  miles  or  more  away.  We  hear  Galli-Gurci  and 
Sembrich  in  our  own  homes,  and  Caruso  returns 
from  the  dead  to  sing  to  us.  Events  that  few  could 
witness  are  brought  to  the  whole  human  race  on  the 
celluloid  film:  we  see  the  King  of  England  walk 
through  Westminster  Abbey  to  lay  a  wreath  on  the 
tomb  of  the  unknown  soldier,  and  we  see  and  hear 
the  President  of  the  United  States  speaking  in  Arling- 
ton Cemetery.  If  the  Reverend  Mr.  Kirkland,  who 
winced  at  the  complexity  of  1822,  could  return  to  us 
today,  what  would  he  think  of  our  generation! 

But  the  scientific  revolution  has  done  a  thousand 
other  things.  It  has  given  us  not  only  new  commodi- 
ties but  new  substances.  We  juggle  with  the  atoms 
of  carbon  and  hydrogen  and  the  rest,  and  create  ma- 
terials that  Nature  herself  has  not  formed.  We 
make  carborundum  and  acetylene  gas  and  celluloid 
and  hundreds  of  other  compounds  which  we  use  in 
our  daily  lives.  What  we  formerly  obtained  from 
plants  and  animals  we  now  manufacture.  We  make 
dyes  and  medicines  from  coal  tar;  we  extract  sugar 
from  beets;  we  make  perfume  out  of  garbage,  and 
foodstuffs  out  of  sewa.^e.    From  corn  we  take  a  hun- 


dred  useful  products  ranging  all  the  way  from  salad 
oil  for  our  tables  to  the  erasers  on  our  pencils.  Lux- 
uries that  were  formerly  the  monopoly  of  the  privi- 
leged few  are  now  the  common  property  of  every- 
body. Medicines  such  as  a  prince  could  not  have 
had  a  century  ago  are  now  at  hand  to  cure  the  pauper. 
Vegetables  and  fruits,  exotic  and  out  of  season,  are 
upon  our  dinner  table.  Our  daily  food  is  brought 
from  China,  from  the  West  Indies,  and  from  the 
far  islands  of  the  Pacific.  The  royal  purple  of  the 
ancients,  and  dyes  far  more  beautiful  than  they 
knew,  are  now  to  be  had  on  the  bargain  counter. 

But  the  scientific  revolution  has  not  only  added  to 
our  conveniences;  it  has  altered  our  methods  of  liv- 
ing. Our  populations  are  no  longer  predominantly 
rural.  They  live  in  huge  cities,  crowded  together 
in  communities  such  as  the  world  never  knew  be- 
fore. The  day  of  individual  w^ork,  for  one's  own 
needs,  in  one's  own  way  and  in  one's  own  time,  has 
gone.  Instead,  men  work  in  vast  factories,  engaged 
on  minute  contributions  to  the  finished  article.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  work  underground,  dig- 
ging the  coal  to  feed  the  monster  industrial  machine. 
Millions  of  men,  women  and  children  toil  feverishly 
to  keep  it  going,  and  the  whole  system  is  so  incon- 
ceivably intricate  and  so  closely  articulated  that  dis- 
location in  one  part  of  it  affects  all  the  rest,  and  in- 
dustrial cohesiveness  has  come  to  be  a  more  essen- 
tial factor  in  the  world  than  political  cohesiveness. 
For  example,  you  cannot  have  clothes  without  a 
cotton  mill;  you  cannot  have  a  cotton  mill  without 
machinery;  you  cannot  have  machinery  without 
steel;  you  cannot  have  steel  without  iron;  you  can- 
not sitnelt  iron  without  coal;  you  cannot  have  coal 


without  railroads  to  bring  it  to  you;  you  cannot  have 
railroads  without  involving  a  hundred  occupations 
and  enterprises.  Civilization  has  in  fact  become  a 
great  machine,  the  wheels  of  which  must  be  kept 
turning,  or  the  people  starve.  For  millions  of  human 
beings  it  is  a  vast  treadmill,  worked  by  weary  feet 
to  grind  the  corn  that  makes  the  bread  that  gives 
them  strength  to  walk  the  treadmill. 

And  with  it  all  has  come  the  speeding  up  of  life, 
and  the  spirit  of  hurry  and  worry  such  as  our  grand- 
fathers with  all  their  lack  of  conveniences  never 
dreamed  of  even  in  their  nightmares.  The  human 
race  lives  by  schedule,  according  to  a  stereotyped 
routine.  Life  has  become  more  and  more  a  stand- 
ardized process,  in  which  there  is  little  of  serenity 
or  of  leisure.  We  hurry  from  birth  to  death,  goaded 
only  to  greater  haste  by  our  increasingly  speedy  con- 
veyances, feverishly  trying  to  catch  up  with  the  ma- 
chinery w^hich  we  have  ourselves  created.  Truly 
this  is  a  complex  world.  The  sixty  Harvard  seniors 
of  the  Class  of  1822  would  stand  aghast  at  our  hectic 
civilization. 

And  with  the  increase  of  machinery  has  come  the 
increase  of  human  knowledge.  Rather  it  is  the  in- 
crease of  knowledge  that  has  made  all  these  inven- 
tions possible.  For  the  scientific  revolution  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  born  of  a  great  intellectual 
curiosity  and  a  new  method  of  approach.  When 
Francis  Bacon  first  emphasized  the  importance  of 
the  experimental  method  as  an  approach  to  human 
knowledge,  he  was  sowing  the  seed  which  began  to 
develop  to  its  full  fruition  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  old  accepted  facts  of  nature  were  tested  and 
analyzed.  Nature  herself  was  put  in  the  witness  box 
and  experiment  was  the  interrogating  counsel.     All 


the  phenomena  of  life,  whether  pertaining  to  the 
body,  the  brain,  or  the  soul,  were  haled  for  exam- 
ination before  the  court.  Under  the  stimulus  of  this 
method,  we  have  pushed  back  the  boundaries  of 
human  knowledge  far,  far  beyond  where  they  were 
a  century  ago.  In  biology,  in  surgery,  in  medicine, 
in  physics,  chemistry,  astronomy,  and  in  a  score  of 
other  sciences,  we  have  wrenched  the  facts  from 
nature  by  a  process  of  cross-examination  which 
would  not  be  denied.  As  the  inquiries  have  grown 
in  detail  and  complexity,  dozens  of  new  sciences 
have  been  added  to  the  list.  The  body  of  knowledge 
has  developed  bewilderingly.  The  long-hidden  se- 
crets of  life  are  slowly  becoming  ours.  We  have 
traced  man  back  to  the  Tertiary  Period  and  we  are 
reaching  long  fingers  of  inquiry  into  the  universe  of 
which  we  form  so  minute  a  part,  and  beyond  this 
universe  into  other  universes,  where  life  and  intelli- 
gence may  exist,  far  transcending  our  tiny  compre- 
hension. We  are  almost  intoxicated  with  the  new 
knowledge.  We  stand  on  tiptoe  before  each  new 
promise  of  discovery,  feverishly  awaiting  its  out- 
come. The  telescope,  the  microscope,  the  spectro- 
scope, are  daily  bringing  us  information  that  leaves 
us  gasping;  and  we  are  stunned  by  the  realization 
that  in  this  thirst}^  search  for  knowledge  w^e  are  just 
at  the  beginning  of  the  way.  Ahead  of  us  lies  a  long, 
rising  road,  wdth  ever-broadening  outlooks  on  either 
side. 

This  is  the  kind  of  complex  world  into  which  your 
class  is  stepping.  A  hundred  years  ago  it  is  conceiv- 
able that  a  man  might  acquire  and  digest  a  fairly 
substantial  proportion  of  the  body  of  human  knowl- 
edge. At  least  he  could  easily  find  a  point  of  orien- 
tation from  which  he  could  intelligently  survey  the 


course,  and  keep  up  with  the  progress  of  the  march. 
Today  this  is  utterly  impossible.  In  the  growing 
complexity  of  knowledge  one  can  scarcely  find  his 
way.  Whole  groups  of  conclusions  must  be  accepted 
without  analysis  or  examination,  and  most  of  the 
departments  of  learning  we  cannot  even  enter.  In 
your  four  years  at  Wellesley  you  young  women  have 
scarcely  touched  the  garment's  hem  of  human  knowl- 
edge. If  you  have  obtained  the  scantiest  outline,  or 
a  point  of  view,  or  a  method  of  approach,  you  have 
gotten  all  that  any  college  can  hope  to  give  to  its 
graduates. 

I  wonder  if  you  have  seen  in  this  long  analysis  that 
I  have  made  where  my  thought  is  leading.  Compara- 
tively speaking,  what  a  simple  task  those  sixty 
Harvard  seniors  faced  when  they  stepped  out  into 
the  world  a  hundred  years  ago  and  upon  what  simple 
responsibilities  they  entered!  The  environment  of 
their  lives  was  so  easily  understood  and  controlled. 
The  problems  of  daily  existence  were  so  reasonably 
adapted  to  their  capacities.  You  young  women,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  projected  into  a  world  so  com- 
plex, into  an  environment  so  baffling,  that  few  in- 
dividuals can  understand  it  all,  and  fewer  still  can 
control  it.  You  have  been  educated  for  leadership 
at  a  time  when  leadership  is  increasingly  vital  in  the 
service  of  men  and  increasingly  difficult  to  establish. 
You  will  be  tested  with  cruel  burdens  in  a  way  your 
grandfathers  never  were  tested.  You  must  cany  re- 
sponsibilities that  would  have  broken  the  backs  of 
your  forebears  a  century  ago.  This  is  the  price  that 
you  pay  for  your  privileges  here  at  Wellesley;  this 
is  the  penalty  of  education  in  this  generation.  The 
thing  that  you  win  today  is  not  a  reward,  but  a  re- 


sponsibility;  not  an  easy  entrance  to  a  quiet  and 
agreeable  life,  but  a  crushing  obligation  to  lead  your 
generation  in  such  fashion  that  it  may  indeed  be- 
come the  master  of  its  environment. 

I  wish  I  could  paint  the  nature  of  that  obligation 
as  I  see  it  this  morning  without  seeming  to  use  merely 
resounding  and  empty  w^ords.  Perhaps  I  can  illus- 
trate what  I  mean  by  an  example  from  the  field  of 
government,  although  this  is  just  one  department  of 
life  in  which  difficulties  are  multiplying.  Govern- 
ment a  hundred  years  ago  was  a  comparatively  sim- 
ple affair.  It  dealt  with  matters  that  were  easily 
within  the  scope  of  intelligence  of  the  average  man. 
In  its  practical  aspects  there  was  little  that  was  tech- 
nical about  it.  Locally  it  had  to  do  with  good  roads 
and  water  supply  and  common  lands  and  other  mat- 
ters, which  could  readily  be  considered  in  town 
meeting  and  upon  which  the  least  intelligent  could 
have  an  opinion  that  might  be  valuable.  Even  in  its 
national  aspect  government  was  not  complex.  There 
were  few  technical  bureaus  and  those  that  existed 
did  not  affect  the  daily  lives  of  the  citizens.  There 
was  no  problem  of  transportation,  because  there 
were  no  railroads;  there  was  no  perilous  conflict  be- 
tween capital  and  labor,  because  there  were  no  ma- 
chines, no  mass  production,  and  no  specialization  of 
industry.  The  scope  of  government  in  those  days 
was  largely  negative.  It  was  built  around  the  prin- 
ciple of  thou  shalt  not,  and  was  based  on  simple 
moralities  which  appealed  to  the  understanding  and 
reason  of  the  average  man. 

But  those  days  are  gone.  The  scientific  revolution 
has  wiped  them  out  as  completely  as  if  fhey  had 
never  existed.  Government  has  become  infinitely 
complex  and  technical.     It  has  to  do  for  the  most 

10 


part  with  matters  which  are  far  beyond  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  average  citizen.  It  deals  with  compli- 
cated bond  issues,  with  subtle  transportation  prob- 
lems, with  involved  plans  of  taxation  and  tariff, 
with  technical  educational  projects,  and  with  a  hun- 
dred other  matters,  which  directly  affect  our  lives 
and  happiness,  and  in  regard  to  which  we  are  called 
upon  to  express  our  opinion  as  citizens.  Conse- 
quently, the  breach  between  the  citizenship  and  its 
government  is  widening  as  science  increases  the  com- 
plexity of  its  operations.  Our  elections,  many  of 
them,  are  fought  out  on  the  basis  of  issues  about 
which  we  voters  have  no  intelligent  conception  what- 
soever, nor  could  a  majority  of  us  acquire  such  a  con- 
ception even  if  there  were  time  and  machinery  for 
our  education.  Frankly  the  situation  has  gotten 
beyond  us.  Even  in  my  time  in  New  York  City  I 
have  seen  the  function  of  government  increase  in 
elaborateness  and  complexity  until  now  there  are 
few  people  w^ho  really  understand  all  its  technical 
complications.  Government  is  getting  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  people,  not  in  the  sense  that  anybody 
is  taking  it  away  from  them,  but  in  the  sense  that 
with  the  rapid  extension  of  its  technical  aspects,  it 
is  becoming  more  and  more  difficult  to  comprehend 
and  control. 

It  is  right  at  this  point  that  we  often  make  a  fun- 
damentally erroneous  assumption.  We  assume  that 
man's  capacity  keeps  up  with  his  inventions.  We 
assume  that  as  civilization  becomes  great,  the  human 
stock  which  is  building  it  also  becomes  great;  that 
somehow  or  other,  by  some  alchemy  or  other,  there 
is  a  rise  in  individual  capacity  from  generation  to 
generation  to  match  the  increasing  complexity  of 
our  physical  environment.    We  seem  to  take  it  for 

11 


granted  that  there  is  some  sure  inhibition  that  would 
prevent  men  from  creating  machines  which  they 
could  not  control;  and  that  the  very  fact  that  they 
have  created  them  is  proof  of  their  ability  to  man- 
age them. 

But  this  is  not  the  fact.  Knowledge  may  mean 
power,  but  it  does  not  necessarily  mean  capacity. 
We  cannot  be  dogmatically  sure  that  there  has  been 
substantial  improvement  in  the  human  stock  since 
the  days  of  the  Egyptians  or  the  Greeks.  The  men 
who  labored  with  their  hands  to  build  Cheops'  pyra- 
mid probably  had  wit  enough  and  intelligence  enough 
to  use  a  steam  hoist  and  a  concrete-mixer  if  these 
inventions  had  been  given  to  them.  Even  less  sure 
can  we  be  that  this  last  century  which  has  added 
so  tremendously  to  our  mechanical  environment  has 
brought  a  corresponding  improvement  in  human 
capacity.  In  fact  we  know  that  it  is  not  true.  Men 
were  no  less  able  in  the  days  of  Washington  and 
Hamilton,  and  Channing  and  Fox  than  they  are  to- 
day. We  have  come  into  our  new  inheritance  with 
no  greater  abilities  than  our  grandfathers  had.  The 
difference  between  the  Harvard  Class. of  1822  and  the 
Wellesley  Class  of  1922  lies  not  in  their  respective 
capacities,  but  in  the  loads  w^hich  those  capacities 
must  bear. 

In  this  field  of  government,  therefore,  our  task  is 
to  control  complex  functions  like  subways  and  street 
railroad  financing  with  the  same  intelligence  that 
was  adapted  to  the  spade  and  the  blacksmith  shop. 
The  machinery  of  our  environment  is  increasing  in 
complexity,  but  the  tools  of  control  remain  largely 
the  same. 

And  how  faulty  those  tools  may  be  we  are  only 
just   now   beginning   to   realize.     We   have    always 

12 


thought  of  the  American  people — our  own  people — 
as  being  peculiarly  intelligent.  We  have  had  a  con- 
scious pride  in  the  ability  of  the  average  man  and  in 
our  great  experiment  of  democracy,  based  on  the 
principle  of  equality  of  responsibility.  And  now 
come  the  statistics  of  the  government  gathered  from 
our  army  during  the  war,  w^hen  for  the  first  time  we 
had  the  opportunity  of  testing  by  modern  scientific 
methods  the  intelligence  of  a  substantial  cross-sec- 
tion of  our  people.  Of  the  white  draft — that  is,  the 
white  soldiers  as  opposed  to  negroes — thirty  per  cent 
were  found  to  be  unable  to  read  and  understand 
newspapers  or  to  write  letters  home.  Forty-seven 
and  three-tenths  per  cent  of  the  w^hite  draft  fell  be- 
low the  mental  age  of  thirteen  years,  only  one  year 
over  the  maximum  mental  age  of  what  are  generally 
known  as  morons.  Forty-seven  and  three-tenths  per 
cent!  Sixty-six  and  two-thirds  per  cent  of  the  white 
draft  tested  below  a  percentage  that  marked  the 
minimum  capacity  necessary  to  carry  on  the  so- 
called  paper  work  of  the  army — that  is,  making  re- 
ports and  keeping  the  files.  Out  of  all  those  millions 
of  drafted  men  just  a  third  had  ability  enough  to 
carry  on  this  by  no  means  laborious  type  of  mental 
work. 

The  appalling  significance  of  these  statistics  it  is 
impossible  to  escape.  They  cannot  be  explained 
away.  We  had  the  best  blood  of  America  in  the 
army.  Those  men  represented  certainly  our  average 
intelligence  and  capacity.  They  reflected  our  citizen- 
ship with  substantial  accuracy.  And  yet  thirty  per 
cent  of  them  w^ere  unable  to  read  and  write,  and 
nearly  fifty  per  cent  fell  below  a  mental  age  of  thir- 
teen years!  These  are  the  people  upon  whom  our 
complex  life  is  placing  its  gigantic  responsibilities. 

13 


These  are  the  human  tools  through  which  we  fondly 
hope  that  all  this  unintelligible  machinery  of  civiliza- 
tion may  somehow  or  other  be  intelligently  con- 
trolled. 

I  say  therefore  that  you  young  women  are  facing 
the  supreme  challenge  of  human  history,  and  I  re- 
peat that  your  diploma  today  is  not  a  reward  but  a 
crushing  obligation.  The  future  looms  like  an  angry 
cloud,  and  whatever  of  leadership  and  spiritual 
force  you  have  gained  here  at  Wellesley  is  needed 
now  more  than  at  any  other  moment  in  the  progress 
of  the  race. 

For  it  cannot  be  denied  that  humanity  stands  to- 
day in  a  position  of  peril.  One  great,  unanswered 
question  is  written  across  the  future  in  letters  of  fire : 
Is  man  to  be  the  master  of  the  civilization  he  has 
created,  or  is  he  to  be  its  victim?  Can  he  control 
the  forces  which  he  has  himself  let  loose?  Will  this 
intricate  machinery  which  he  has  built  up  and  this 
vast  body  of  knowledge  which  he  has  appropriated 
be  the  servant  of  the  race,  or  will  it  be  a  Frankenstein 
monster  that  will  slay  its  own  maker?  In  brief,  has 
man  the  capacity  to  keep  up  with  his  own  machines? 

This  is  the  supreme  question  before  us.  All  other 
problems  that  confront  us  are  merely  its  corroHaries. 
And  the  necessity  of  a  right  answer  is  perhaps  more 
immediate  than  we  realize.  For  science  is  not  stand- 
ing still.  In  speaking  of  the  scientific  revolution  I 
was  not  speaking  of  a  phenomenon  that  was  confined 
to  the  nineteenth  century.  Rather  we  are  just  at  the 
beginning  of  the  revolution.  We  could  not  stop  it  if 
we  would.  It  is  advancing  by  leaps  and  bounds,  gain- 
ing in  impetus  with  each  year.  It  is  giving  us  more 
machines,  faster  machines,  machines  increasingly 
more  intricate  and  complex.    Life  in  the  future  will 

14 


be  speeded  up  infinitely  beyond  the  present.  Sources 
of  energy  will  be  tapped  and  harnessed  far  out-rival- 
ling what  we  have  today.  There  lies  in  full  view 
before  us  a  realm  of  discovery  in  physical  science  till 
now  untrodden  by  mortals  even  in  their  dreams.  The 
pioneers  are  already  upon  the  road  to  this  promised 
land.  In  California  at  the  present  moment  a  com- 
bined attack,  financed  and  equipped  on  a  huge  scale, 
is  being  launched  on  the  problem  of  the  structure  of 
matter;  and  the  same  search  is  being  feverishly 
prosecuted  in  laboratories  all  over  the  world.  We 
now  know  that  in  atoms  of  matter  there  exists  a 
store  of  energy  incomparably  more  abundant  and 
powerful  than  any  over  which  we  have  thus  far  ob- 
tained control.  If  once  we  can  liberate  this  force, 
what  machines  we  can  build!  Steam  and  electricity 
will  be  an  anachronism  at  which  our  children  will 
laugh  as  we  laugh  at  the  hand-loom  and  the  spinning 
wheel.  With  a  pound  weight  of  this  radioactive  sub- 
stance we  will  get  as  much  energy  as  we  now  obtain 
from  150  tons  of  coal.  Or  another  pound  weight 
can  be  made  to  do  the  work  of  150  tons  of  dynamite. 

Aye,  there's  the  rub.  One  hundred  and  fifty  tons 
of  dynamite — enough  to  blow  the  city  of  Boston  into 
oblivion — compressed  to  a  pound  weight  which  might 
be  held  in  the  hand!  Do  you  wonder  that  a  sober- 
thinking  scientist  like  Professor  Frederick  Soddy  of 
Oxford  University  should  say  "I  trust  this  discovery 
will  not  be  made  until  it  is  clearly  understood  what 
is  involved."  "And  yet,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "it  is 
a  discovery  that  is  sooner  or  later  bound  to  come. 
Conceivably  it  might  be  made  tomorrow." 

You  see  what  the  problem  is.  Science  will  not 
wait  for  man  to  catch  up.  It  does  not  hold  itself 
responsible  for  the  morals  or  capacities  of  its  human 

15 


employers.  It  gives  us  a  fire  engine  with  which  to 
throw  water  to  extinguish  a  fire;  if  we  want  to  use 
the  engine  to  throw  kerosene  on  the  fire,  that  is  our 
lookout.  The  engine  is  adapted  to  both  purposes. 
With  the  same  hand,  science  give  us  X-rays  and  ma- 
chine guns,  modern  surgery  and  high  explosives, 
anesthetics  and  poison  gas.  In  brief,  science  has  mul- 
tiplied man's  physical  powers  ten  thousand  fold  and 
in  like  ratio  has  increased  his  capacity  both  for  con- 
struction and  destruction.  How  is  that  capacity  to 
be  used  in  the  future?  How  can  we  hold  in  check 
the  increasing  physical  power  of  disruptive  influ- 
ences? Have  we  spiritual  assets  enough  to  counter- 
balance the  new  forces?  How  can  we  breed  a  greater 
average  intelligence?  Can  education  run  fast  enough, 
not  only  to  overcome  the  lead  which  science  has 
obtained,  but  to  keep  abreast  in  the  race? 

These  are  ugly  questions  and  they  carry  with  them 
a  perilous  significance.  They  are  hurled  as  a  chal- 
lenge to  your  generation,  and  upon  their  answer  de- 
pends the  whole  future  of  the  race.  And  what  are 
the  answers?  Let  us  be  perfectly  frank  about  the 
matter:  No  intelligent  person  in  my  generation — if 
for  a  moment  I  may  associate  myself  with  the  elder 
statesmen — pretends  to  know.  We  are  wandering  in 
heart-breaking  perplexity,  swamped  with  the  para- 
phernalia of  living,  weighed  down  by  mountains  of 
facts,  trying  to  find  some  sure  way  out  of  this  jungle 
of  machinei^  and  untamed  powers.  And  the  tragedy 
of  it  all  is  that  there  was  a  time  Avhen  we  thought 
w^e  knew  the  answers  to  the  riddles  that  this  modern 
life  of  ours  w  as  propounding.  Up  until  1914  most  of 
us  were  fairly  confident  of  the  result,  fairly  easy 
about  the  future.    We  talked  glibly  of  the  direction 

16 


and  goal  of  human  evolution,  and  of  the  bright  pros- 
pects of  the  race.  But  now  we  know  that  we  did  not 
know.  We  were  misled  by  superficial  hopes,  blinded 
by  false  assumptions.  Those  four  years  of  slaughter, 
and  those  added  four  years  of  chaos  and  misery  that 
have  followed  since  the  Arniistice,  have  given  us  a 
perspective  we  did  not  have  before.  We  see  now  the 
abyss  upon  the  edge  of  which  the  race  is  standing. 
We  see  the  inevitable  doom  that  lies  ahead  unless 
we  can  achieve  a  measure  of  social  control  far 
greater  than  any  which  we  have  hitherto  exercised. 
Bewildered  and  disillusioned,  my  generation  turns 
to  yours — and  upon  your  shoulders  falls  the  wear>^ 
weight  of  all  this  unintelligible  world.  Out  of  all 
times  and  peoples,  a  capricious  fate  seems  to  have 
singled  your  day  and  your  generation  upon  which 
to  center  its  heaviest  responsibilities. 

I  do  not  know  how  you  are  going  to  attack  this 
problem  of  strengthening  the  social  controls.  I  have 
no  specific  advice  to  offer.  With  the  tragic  failures 
of  my  own  generation  in  mind,  I  would  have  some 
reluctance  about  lecturing  you  on  the  principles  of 
success,  even  if  I  knew  what  they  were.  My  genera- 
tion has  been  far  more  modest  since  1914,  far  less 
confident  and  dogmatic.  I  presume,  however,  that 
in  your  program,  education  will  play  an  increasingly 
important  part,  although  what  kind  of  education  is 
best  adapted  to  this  crisis,  and  how  it  is  to  be  applied, 
my  generation  cannot  tell  you.  Surel}^  let  us  hope 
that  in  your  time  no  such  damning  charge  will  be 
leveled  against  you  as  has  been  brought  against  us: 
that  thirty  per  cent  of  the  people  of  free  America  are 
unable  to  read  and  write,  and  that  nearly  half  our 
population  has  a  mental  age  of  less  than  thirteen 
years. 

17 


And  after  education,  what?  Frankly  I  do  not 
know.  In  the  confused  councils  of  my  generation 
many  things  are  being  advocated.  There  are  those 
who  claim  that  the  environmental  attack  upon  which 
my  generation  has  put  such  emphasis  cannot  pos- 
sibly succeed  and  that  the  only  hope  of  the  future 
lies  in  improving  the  quality  of  the  human  stock  by 
the  introduction  of  better  strains.  Consequently  the 
science  of  eugenics  is  attracting  ever  wider  attention. 
There  are  others  who  claim  that  the  hope  of  the 
world  does  not  lie  in  democracy — ^because  the  com- 
plications of  civilization  make  mass-verdict  of  value 
only  in  the  simpler  issues — but  lies  rather  in  an  aris- 
tocracy of  leadership,  recruited  from  all  classes  of 
society  on  the  basis  of  merit.  There  are  still  others 
who  look  for  social  control  only  in  a  fundamental 
reorganization  of  human  society,  with  the  purpose 
of  revising  the  attitude  of  men  toward  wealth  pro- 
duction and  distribution.  Still  others  are  looking  for 
a  solution  in  social  cooperation — if  only  it  can  be 
brought  about — not  only  as  between  individuals 
within  a  class,  but  as  between  classes  within  a  nation 
and  nations  within  a  league.  Again,  there  are  many 
of  us  who  fervently  believe  that  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity contains  the  key  to  the  solution  of  this  great 
crisis,  if  only  that  spirit  can  be  practically  applied. 
How  this  is  to  be  done  in  comprehensive  fashion, 
however,  my  generation  cannot  tell  you,  and  we  hang 
our  heads  in  shame  at  our  own  failure. 

You  see  with  what  confusion  the  discussion  is  being 
carried  on  in  the  councils  of  my  generation.  There 
is  no  unanimity  of  opinion;  indeed,  very  little  co- 
herence of  opinion.  Like  those  who  built  the  Tower 
of  Babel  in  the  land  of  Shinar,  we  are  smiften  with 
many  tongues  and  many  counsels. 

18 


But  one  thing  we  know :  the  way  out  of  this  morass, 
if  it  is  found,  will  be  found  by  a  leadersliip  of  intel- 
ligence. It  will  be  discovered  by  knowledge  con- 
sciously applied  to  the  task.  For  that  leadership  and 
that  knowledge  we  cannot  look  to  the  many.  We 
must  look  to  the  few.  We  must  look  largely  to  that 
handful  of  men  and  women  who  each  year  come 
from  our  universities.  That  is  why  your  graduation 
today  is  so  significant  an  event.  It  contains  a  prom- 
ise for  the  future;  it  holds  out  a  hope  of  healthier 
days.  There  is  here  in  your  group  the  possibility  of 
vision  and  creative  leadership  such  as  the  world 
needs  now  more  than  at  any  time  in  its  history. 

So  I  welcome  you  to  the  grim  struggle  that  awaits 
you.  You  are  joining  the  ranks  of  a  gallant  army — 
the  army  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit.  It  has  fought 
in  many  ages  on  many  a  field  and  has  many  times 
been  vanquished.  Just  now  it  is  desperately  hard- 
pressed.  Its  ranks  are  torn  and  its  flags  are  going 
down.  It  is  being  attacked  by  an  enemy  far  more 
powerful  and  determined  than  any  with  which  it  has 
previously  fought.  It  badly  needs  the  reinforcement 
which  you  are  bringing.  If  you  can  come  with  more 
intelligence,  more  resourcefulness,  and  more  devo- 
tion than  previous  generations  have  shown,  the  day 
may  be  saved.  But  if  your  generation  fails,  as  the 
generation  for  which  I  speak  failed  in  all  the  years 
that  led  up  to  1914,  then  there  is  little  hope,  "and  we 
are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain, 

Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle 
and  flight. 

Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night." 
God  give  you  high  courage  in  the  army  of  the  King- 
dom of  the  Spirit! 


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